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William sighed as the door in front of him slammed shut.
He kinda wished he had like, even one parent that could help him try to bargain and debate his way into a Magic School. He didn’t even know which one of his parents was the elf! All he knew was that 15 years ago, there was some elven delegation in town. Stuff led to things, and things led to him.
That was the 7th school this week to deny him entry! How was he supposed to learn how to master his mana if every school he went to denied him for ‘private reasons’? His hands shot up to his ears, flicking the semi-pointed tips.
“Guh! ‘ No you can’t join you wouldn’t fit in’ , ‘your mana is too different’ ‘15 years old is too young for our school’. If these people are going to not let me in because I’m a half-elf, they should have the courage to say it!”
There was sudden laughter from next to him and William jumped, yelling out as his feet slipped on the loose dirt of the street, sending him to the floor. “Ah!”
The man took a step back, laughing as he shook his head, extending his hand to help him up. “Shit, kiddo. You’re jumpier than a rabbit on fairy dust. Here, let me help ya’ up.”
Looking up at the man next to him, William frowned, but grabbed onto the man’s hand and allowed himself to be lifted. The man patted William on the shoulders, swiping some of the dust off. “You’re right, you know. Well, other than about that last one, they actually do have a rule about only letting adults in.”
William tilted his head to the side. “What?”
The man waved towards the school that just denied him. “You’re right about them. They’re not letting you in cause you’re a Half-Elf, and they really should just come out and say it. But they won’t, cause they’re all cowards.”
William found himself nodding slowly, looking at the man with narrowed eyes. Now that he was standing up, and the sun wasn’t above the man’s head, he should be able to see his face, but it was still somehow obscured by the shadow of his hat.
The man thrust his hand out quickly, and William shook it after a moment of hesitation, and let out a yell as the man shook it so hard he bounced back and forth. “The name’s Folwin, kiddo! And I have a proposition for ya!”
William shook his arm out to stop it from hurting and took a small step backwards. “I’m good, sir, thanks anyw-”
“-It’ll help ya learn how to use your manaaaaa…”
William paused mid-sentence as Folwin interrupted him, staring with wide eyes. Holy shit. Was this like in one of his books?! A hidden master of magic, teaching a student that everyone else shuns!
Or… this could be a scam. It had all the makings of one, a nice, eccentric person with a shady vibe and a magic, face-hiding hat, offering him exactly what he had been searching for this last month .
He didn’t know how he could tell, but he could feel Folwin grinning at him the longer he stayed silent. William coughed. “You have my… attention, I guess, so good job. What do I need to do, though? I’d like to know before I make any agreements or, y’know, magic deals or something.”
Folwin laughed, slapping his thigh as he leaned on William’s shoulder. “Oh my god, you think I’m a scammer! I mean fair enough, kiddo, shit like this don’t happen every day, and I guess I didn’t put my most honest foot forward.”
Folwin reached up and tipped his hat back, and immediately his face came into view. Bright orange, spiky hair stuck out from his large hat, his beard covering the lower bit of his face. There was an eyepatch over his left eye, and no matter how much he looked at the other one, he couldn’t pin down what colour it was.
He thrust his hand out again to shake, but William declined this time. It didn’t seem to phase Folwin, who grinned, small, colourful sparks appearing behind him like fireworks as he snapped his fingers, striking a pose.
“The name is Folwin Felaxina! Rainbow Mage of the Fixzal Plains! It is a pleasure to meet you properly, young…”
“William! Wait. Felaxina... isn’t that-”
Folwin laughed, slapping William on the back. “You seem the cautious type, and that’s usually good, but right now there is no need to worry about if you’ve heard of me before! So we’ll move on! My proposition! I’ve been looking for a… helper here for quite some time now, and I believe that you would be an excellent candidate!”
William rubbed the small of his back, a smile slowly forming on his face. “You…. you’re looking for an Apprentice? To teach magic to?!”
Folwin’s face froze for a moment, and he shook his head slightly before grinning at William. “Uh, sure! Teaching you magic is technically part of the deal, so let’s go with Apprentice, yea. You want in?”
William clenched his fist. This was it. He had been trying to find a school to teach him for the last month, ever since his mana circuits activated, and now he had an actual mage offering to teach him magic?
“I’m in! What do I need to do first, Sir?”
Folwin grinned, wrapping his arm around William’s shoulder. “Excellent! I’ll make a master Sorcerer out of you yet, kiddo! And for your first task…”
William panted as his back hit the floor, the bundle of posters he had in his hands flopping to the floor.
“Uuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhgggggg”
Folwin poked his head out from around the doorframe of the other room in the house. “Hey, there kiddo! You’re back! And you picked up all the fliers?”
Pushing himself to his feet, William stretched out his muscles, throwing the bundle at Folwin. “Yes, sir, I got your fliers. Why the fuck are you advertising ‘mana enhancement pills’?”
Folwin flinched, but his grin stayed on his face. “Look kiddo, you’ve been with me for what, a year now? That sounds about right. Surely by now, you’ve noticed I’m not the, ah, what’s the word…”
“Law-abiding?”
Folwin smiled as he clicked his fingers, winking at William. “Yes, that’s exactly it. I dropped outta my Magic School halfway through cause I was too good and got bored, and apparently ‘performing magic without a certificate from a registered school’ is a crime. It’s bullshit, is what it is.”
William froze. “Wait, wait what?! You’re saying that when you finally get around to teaching me spells, I can’t even use them without becoming a criminal?!”
Folwin just shrugged. “In this country, at least. I know Huladrium is even stricter, with no magic at all allowed, but there are places like Jureeda where there’s like a public honour system for the stuff or something. You could always go there...”
William groaned, running his hands down his face. “I can’t believe this, Folwin! I’ve been doing tasks for you for a year to become worthy of learning proper magic from you! And this is what I get for it?!”
Shaking his head, William moved over to the door. “That’s it. I’m done. I’m gonna go try and talk my way into an actual school.”
William yelped as Folwin appeared in front of him with a flash of light. “Wait, kiddo, just wait for a second alright!”
Folwin sighed, pinching his nose. “Ok, I get it, your upset. Look, I was gonna tell you this a few days from now, on the 1-year mark of you starting to help me out, but I don’t want you leaving here angry or something, so I’ll just tell you it now.”
William crossed his arms. “Fine, but then I’m leaving so I can think.”
Folwin’s grin came back. “Oh, trust me, you’ll be thinking alright. Listen, you know how Magic Schools were created because kids who just got their Mana Circuits somehow recreated the specific incantations and runes needed to cast a spell?”
William’s eyebrow rose as he nodded. “Yes, I do. What about it.”
Folwin chuckled. “They call these incidents before the schools were made coincidences, but that’s absolute bullshit. Those kids didn’t recite jack, and they definitely didn’t draw any runes.”
A flame appeared over Folwin’s outstretched hand, and without Folwin saying anything, shifted into a block of ice, then a small ball of light, then a flower, then back to fire. William stared at the shifting magic, his mouth agape.
Folwin winked. “The ‘High Mages’ want everyone to think that Magic has rules, that ‘spells’ are the only way to use it. But it aint like that, kiddo. You can put rules on Magic just as much as you can put a crown on a goblin and call it a king.”
“Actually I think the Goblins do have a-”
“Anyway!”
William let Folwin interrupt his interruptions, and the man continued. “Magic is the flow of mana through everything in the world. It’s been here long before anything that could talk, and it’s gonna be here long after the last of us dies, too.”
William glanced out the window, Folwin’s long speech starting to annoy him. Folwin clapped. “Ok, ok. I can see that I’m losing you. I’ll cut the prose and just get to the point, the dirty little secret about the magic that the High Mages don’t want people to know.”
William leaned forward instinctively, his hands shaking. Finally, this was what he had been spending this last year working towards!
“As long as you got the Mana, you can basically do whatever the fuck ya want and it will usually work.”
William froze and could have sworn he heard his brain cracking. It… it was…. “It was that simple?!”
Folwin laughed. “Yep, that’s it, basically. Why do you think I had you working out this whole year? Mana might come from within, but you gotta give the mana a good home or else it won’t grow.”
Folwin opened up the front of his robes for a moment, and William’s eyes went wide as he saw how buff Folwin actually was under them. “Thats why the High Mages wear those poofy robes, to hide the fact that they’re absolutely jacked. They got all the other mages to think they need to study a bunch, so they’re all thin and nerdy. Helps control who got the most mana.”
William sat down, his hands coming up to the side of his head. Now that he actually looked at himself, he could see his own lean muscle, and could actually feel how his Mana Circuits were working more efficiently.
“Oh my god.”
Folwin plopped to the ground next to him, wrapping his arm around Willaim’s shoulders. “Yep! That’s what it was like for me when I figured it out too, halfway through my training at Magic School.”
William jumped to his feet, leaving Folwin to drop suddenly to the floor as he took the man’s arm up with him. But he was so focused he didn’t even hear the THUD against the floor or Folwin swearing at him.
His eyes shot over to an empty cup on the other side of the room. He stoked his own internal Mana, feeling it start to rush through his Mana Circuits. He had tried things like this before, but it hadn’t worked. But if magic was all about intent, maybe it was because he never actually believed that it would work?
He reached out and willed the mug to appear in his hand. For a second, nothing happened. William was about to drop his arm when he felt something pull on his stamina.
WOOSH
There was a small flash of light and William felt something land on his outstretched hand, and when he opened his eyes again, he couldn’t help but start to shake as he saw the mug sitting there, right on his hand.
Folwin’s hand landed on his shoulder, but William barely felt it, staring at the mug as if it had changed his world. Ha, actually, in a way it had.
“That’s some good stuff for your first go at it, Kiddo. How about I show you some of my favourite things to do with Magic, and we can start practising tomorrow morning?”
William nodded, the smile on his face bigger than any in his life before that. He turned to Folwin and grabbed the mans shoulders. “Yes. All the yes. Right now, let’s go.”
Folwin just laughed dragging William outside, jumping up to the roof of the warehouse there were hiding in. William landed with a thud but didn’t even register his sore tailbone. Folwin sat down next to him.
“Alright, so my absolute favourite thing to do with magic is all about making clothes disappear… wait shit, that one might not be the best to start with. Ok, how about making rocks look like coins! Wait that one is illegal too.”
William just laughed as Folwin went through his list of favourites, listening intently. He could tell that this was the first step in a big change to his life.
William couldn’t wait.
